Wednesday, July 31, 2013

KIPP Creates Partnerships with Colleges for Students

KIPP is doing innovative partnerships with colleges and universities all over the country – 39 so far – to “create recruiting pipelines and campus support systems for students who often lack the higher-education connections routinely found in affluent communities” – and it’s working, as this Washington Post article highlights:

The University of Pennsylvania last year had seven undergraduates who hailed from a national charter-school network that educates children from families of modest means.

This school year, the Ivy League university will enroll 13 more graduates of the KIPP network, including one from the District.

The expansion is the result of an unusual tactic that the network once known as the Knowledge Is Power Program has developed to help its students get into and through college. Starting in October 2011, KIPP and college leaders signed pledges to create recruiting pipelines and campus support systems for students who often lack the higher-education connections routinely found in affluent communities.

The agreements that KIPP has signed with 39 colleges and universities contain no admission guarantees. But they do, in many cases, set recruiting goals, such as at Penn, which pledged to recruit 12 to 15 KIPP graduates each year.

Georgetown University, which announced a KIPP agreement in November, said it aims to actively recruit eight to 12 KIPP graduates a year. Its results for the incoming class: Four admitted, two enrolled.

The KIPP effort is one of many that works to help disadvantaged students get into college at a time when experts say too few have access. Among others are nonprofit programs such as QuestBridge and the Posse Foundation. But it is notable that KIPP has obtained written recruiting agreements from numerous colleges, including some of the most prestigious.

“We’re excited to see life breathed into our college partnerships,” said KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg, a graduate of Penn. “KIPP students are applying, getting accepted, and matriculating to our partner colleges and universities. Next steps will be to figure out how to increase not just acceptances but matriculation, and also how to ensure we are maximizing our partnerships to help our alumni stay in college and graduate.”